FIRST, our leaders and government should take care with public statements, especially those likely to provoke extremist reprisals against not just the reported 450 Filipinos in the war zone in and around the Gaza Strip in southern Israel since the massive October 7 surprise massacres and rocket attacks on the nation by the Gaza-based Palestinian group Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya (Hamas) or Islamic Resistance Movement.

Also at risk could be the 1 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and other compatriots in Arab nations and Iran, where there are surely countless sympathizers or allies of Hamas, considered by the United States Council of Foreign Relations as 'the largest, most influential political fundamentalist movement' in the Muslim world.